Richard BF

Designing web sites for bands (and other kinds of musical artists/ensembles) has become an art form of its own, and unfortunately most web designers providing this kind of service aren’t giving bands the kind of site they need: a site which promotes the band’s creative output. In fact many sites seem to be a monument to the web designer, rather than the band.

Musicians need to be confident that the site that’s designed for them, is going to achieve their goals, so that they can get on with what they do best, writing music. If they wanted to be experts in web design, they wouldn’t be writing music.

Having seen hundreds of band web sites over the years, including about 50 today, here’s my list of dos and don’ts for any web site designed to promote or support a band or artist.

So, you’re an artist, and you want a web site that represents you. Band web sites serve a single purpose: to promote your creative output. This may also involve promoting you, but typically, it is your music which is important.

There will be four kinds of users visting your site:

1. I want to know what else to get. They’ve heard your music, and may already have some of it, and they want to know what else you’ve got available, and what it sounds like. There are millions of bands out there, and with p2p and iTunes, people are fussy about what they buy. Give them the choice, let them decide if you’re what they want. If they have to guess by the picture of your album cover, they probably won’t bother.
2. I want to know more about you. These are people looking for background information for an article or review, or are fans wanting to know more about you. With the rise and rise of blogs and countless free onlines zines/portals, everyone is a potential writer or journalist. This also includes fans wanting to know your tour dates.
3. I’ve heard your name, tell me more. They heard your name, perhaps name dropped by another artist, on the radio, in a store, a flyer/poster for a tour, or even in an online newsgroup, and now they want to hear what your music sounds like. This doesn’t mean they will like your music, but if they are a maven, they will be able to recommend your music to people who might. If people like or respect you or what you stand for, they’re more likely to recommend you or your music, even if they don’t like your music.
4. Walk ins. Forget about people who stumble across your site because of some random word or flashy graphic on your site. If music needs to be promoted, then by its nature it is obscure, and the chances of someone accidentally finding your site and then liking your music, is going to be pretty minimal. The people important to you are the ones coming to your site via hyperlinks from another site (probably a recommendation), or someone who heard your name offline (radio, newspaper etc.)

So based on these kinds of users, and what they want out of your site, here’s my Web site design tips for bands and other musical artists check list.

Don’t

Don’t use a flash intro. Flash is an advertisement for the web site designer, not you. The reason a web designer will put a “Skip” or “Enter site” hyperlink under your flash, is because that’s what most people do. A flash intro to your site is an ad for the creative talents of the person who designed the web site, making the very first point of entry to the site more an advertisment for their business, than an advertisement for you. This is like putting a large advertisement for “Smith and Jones Constructions Co.” on your front door.

Don’t use a splash page. Don’t use any kind of introduction to your site. See the flash stuff rant above for more detail. Your users don’t want an introduction, they want to hear your music and find out more about you. An introduction just gets in their way. When a new user visits a web site, you typically have 4 seconds to make an impact before they go elsewhere. Luckily most of your visitors came here because they already heard about you, in which case you have about 10 seconds to give them what they want, or they’ll get frustrated and move on. The first page they see, should be the home page, and everything else in the site should be one click away.

Don’t use weird names for your menu items. If you have a downloads page, call it “Downloads”, “Listen” or similar, not “Audiophonica” or “Experience the pain”. While I appreciate the creative ideals behind renaming things, I’m new to your site, so I don’t know if that’s one of your album titles, one of your side projects, or the name of your web site developer. 4 seconds. Don’t make me think.

Don’t cripple downlable versions of your music. Don’t play only 20 seconds, don’t use really low encoding resolution, don’t encode in mono. People are picky, and if there’s ten bands out there that sound like you, any of these issues may affect their opinion of you. Give the user the best possible chance of experiencing your music as you designed it to be heard. If you’re worried about people just ripping off your stuff, then cut the last 30 seconds, or better still, use a middle resolution encoding, like 128Kbps or 64Kbps MP3. Although if you’re really concerned about users ripping you off, you’re probably in the wrong business.

Don’t provide streams, provide files. If they like your music, let them keep it, don’t make them come back to hear it again. I’ve heard a lot of music I like via streams and via files, but the ones that automatically downloaded into my iTunes library are the ones that I remember and every now and again make me go and buy the album. Get your music out there, that’s why you’re doing this, right?!

Don’t put an advertisement for your web site designer on your main page. In fact, don’t put it anywhere on the site if possible. A lot of artists can’t afford their first web site, so some kind of contra deal with a web site designer can be a good first step, but don’t let them use your site as an advertisement for them. The site is supposed to be a advertisement for your music. The best place to plug the web designer, is inside comment tags inside the HTML for the site. If people want to know who did your site, they will almost always do a “View source” to find out. You don’t see a design credit on each page of a magazine, or at the bottom of a box of serial. Plus good web designers usually don’t need to advertise.

Don’t hide your downloads. I’m new to your site, I don’t know that I have to go into “Discography”, then click on “Track listing” before I can see some MP3s I can download. You have 4 seconds to tell me all this before I go elsewhere. Your downloads should be available via a big “Downloads” hyperlink on your main page, or better still, put four of your signature tunes right there in the middle of your home page. That huge avant garde texturized photo of a radio on your home page serves no useful purpose except advertise the graphic artist. Hide it on another page, and replace it with your downloads.

Don’t make me think you have music. If you don’t have downloadable music, then don’t give me a menu option that looks like you do. If I see “Music” or “Downloads” and there’s no music to download, I’m going to click the close button.

Don’t have a section called “Media”. Media is an outdated term used to describe the in-crowd music industry clique who are supposedly more important or intelligent than you. These days everyone is the media. Instead use terms like “Press releases”, “History”, “News”. Don’t label the audience, label the type of content.

Don’t make me hunt for text or hyperlinks. Text is there to be read, so don’t make it grey or lime green text on a white background. Hyperlinks are there for people to click on, so don’t make them the same colour as your text. If possible use standard blue underlined hyperlinks, otherwise, something that equally stands out and looks like hyperlinks.

Don’t use marketing gimmicks. Don’t make me sign up to your email list before I can listen to your music, for example. My time is valuable, I’ve given you my attention, don’t abuse it by forcing me to do something I don’t want to do. Your music is the only thing that will keep my attention, but there’s a long list of things that will make you lose my attention.

Do

Make your songs available for download. This is the single most important function of a band’s web site, and I’m still amazed at the number of sites which don’t provide this. People who are portentially interested in your music have come to your site, wallet in hand, saying “Let me hear your music, and if I like it, I might buy it. If I don’t like it, I might still recommend it to my friend who would like it.” They’re here for your music. If your site doesn’t have any music, why are you running a web site?

Make your music downloadable as MP3. WMA (Windows Media) is only playable on Windows or if you’ve downloaded a WMA player for the Mac or Linux. RealAudio is even worse, Windows, Mac and Linux must all download the RealAudio player before they can listen to your music, and in most cases web developers use it only because they’ve bought an expensive license to use it. The only format you should be using is MP3. Windows Media Player (Windows default), QuickTime (Mac default) and most Linux systems all play MP3 out of the box. Plus, many in the Internet community don’t like proprietary formats, and may leave your site on principle if it contains WMA for example. MP3 also gives you a wide range of encoding options, and there are more MP3 encoders out there than any other format. Even WMA and iTunes will rip to MP3 if you configure them to.

Explain your genre. Especially if you’re against having downloads of your music. A single sentence name dropping genres, emotions and other artists can do wonders for people visiting your site, especially if it is the very first thing they see when your site loads.

Name drop other bands/artists. Even if just in a news or history section, name dropping other artists will help the user visualise your place in a particular scene. If you play regularly with band X, or did a tour headlining for band Y, or share members with band Z, users will have a much better idea what you possibly sound like, your attitude to music, how long you might have been around, what kind of following you have and more importantly, what your influences are. For example if I said I’d toured a lot through Europe with Pretty Girls Make Graves, that would tell you a lot about me. (And no, I didn’t really tour with them)

Hyperlink to other sites. If you mention another site or band, hyperlink to them. You might think this helps users get away from your site, but instead it helps the user get informed, shows that you’re involved in the scene, are aware of and are helping other artists, and the user will remember you. Also other artists will usually return the favour and hyperlink back to you.

Use web standards. When I visit your site, I want to see information about you, not advertisements of how good your graphic designer is. Flash doesn’t work on all browsers, IE hacks like bad mouseover images don’t work on all browsers, pop-out menus don’t work on all browsers. I visited a band site today and when I moused over their album cover in Safari, the whole site suddenly disappeared. HTML, CSS and text isn’t hard, and good designs don’t have to have bad user interfaces. Keep it simple, keep it useful.

Your record label must have downloads of your music. Record labels have one purpose, to promote your music. If they don’t have downloads of your music on their web site, get a new record label. This is especially true for small independent labels, who are competing with thousands of other labels. I visited a label today which had six artists, yet the one band I was interested in didn’t have any music available. The thing that got me is that I came to their record label site because their own site didn’t have any music either. I’ve already forgotten their name.

Make your site work safe. Most people now have Internet access at work, and will find your site during their down time, like a lunch break. Don’t play music without first asking, don’t take over their screen (especially without asking), and don’t display pornographic or potentially offensive visuals unless they’ve given you permission to. This isn’t because they’re prudes, it is because they work in an open plan office, and their boss probably won’t understand why you think a loud video of two dogs screwing is an artistic representation of your music. We get it, their boss won’t.

Recommend other artists. This isn’t just name dropping, it is actually recommending other artists. This doesn’t have to be on the main page, but if you like other artists, say so in your biography, or on a page title “We recommend” or “Other bands we like”. You recommend other people, and other people will recommend you. Build contacts and you’ll share users, listeners and fans. Help each other out. The other band will thank you, the user will thank you, and you will be remembered.

Tell me about yourself. What is your history, your biography. What bands did you used to be in, hyperlink them for me so I can be a fan of them as well. Briefly, what is your music about? Briefly, what instruments are involved? Briefly, what do you think makes you unique, why should I spend my time with you? Inform me. Don’t lie to me, or give me a marketing pitch, tell me the honest truth. Build my trust, but help me understand your message.

Summary

It is the 21st century, and while we all hate consumerism, that’s how the world currently works. The key points here are:

1. You are competing with every other artist for a fragment of time from a user.
2. When a user comes to your site, they are saying to you “Here I am. You have my attention for about 10 seconds. Tell me why I should remember you.”
3. When a user comes to your site, they are giving you their permission to deliver your message. In marketing terms, this is the holy grail. Be nice, be helpful, be obvious, get your music across to them, and don’t take advantage of their good will.
4. A happy and satisfied user, is an advertisment for you and your music. Give them what they want, and they’ll promote you for free.

Above all remember: it is all about the music. Everything else is a distraction.